JI demands electoral reforms before the next elections

Lahore : Ameer, Jamaat e Islami, Pakistan, Senator Siraj ul Haq, has demanded the enforcement of electoral reforms before the next general elections and has suggested to the political leadership to give an agreed action plan in this regard.

Addressing the JI Parliamentary Board meeting at Mansoora on Thursday, he said that elections without electoral reforms would only be an exercise in futility.

At the meeting, the JI chief condemned the US decision declaring the Hizbul Mujahideen as a terrorist organization, and termed it usurpation of the independence right of the nations. He said that the Hizbul Majahideen was an organization of the Kashmiris and the US ban on it was violation of the international law. He said freedom movements were going on all over the world and banning the Hizbul Mujahideen only to please India was totally unjust, he added.

While stating that winning elections by spending billions and by purchasing votes was the worst form of rigging, the JI chief demanded ban on indiscriminate spending of money in elections and said the Presiding Officer should be held responsible for electoral irregularities. He said that the notification of the victory of the candidate spending beyond the prescribed amount should be withheld. He said that the candidates not fulfilling the conditions laid down in the articles 62 and 63 must be barred from contesting election.

Siraj ul Haq said that neither the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee for electoral reforms had not been implemented so far nor any foolproof mechanism to check rigging and other irregularities in election had been given.

He said that the feudal lords and capitalists considered politics as their housemaid while there was no democracy worth the name in the political parties. In fact, the political parties had turned into family properties. As a result, a few families were holding the country’s politics and democracy as hostage.

He stressed that the Election Commission should hold elections of parties under its own supervision so that the trend of inherited politics could be controlled.

The JI chief said that even in the past, electoral reforms had been promised many a time but till today, the electoral system remained full of the weaknesses as ever.